Sunday, 9 September 2012

It was finally time for a visit to
Limehouse this week, a station we’ve been half-heartedly trying to get to for
quite some time now. It just seems that
each time we finally get around to it we get a more enticing offer, which to be
fair is not that difficult a feat as Limehouse is far from being one of the
more appealing locations on the DLR.
Last time for instance Tindall asked me if I fancied staying in instead
to watch episodes of The Big Bang Theory back to back. Only kidding of course, I’d never watch that
crap. But tonight we took the plunged
and I met Rob straight from work at our first pub for the night. I entered the Railway Tavern to find him and
a pint awaiting me. He didn’t look out
of place though, for this pub is ideal for the lone drinker with time to kill
as they wait for their train or their DLR Challenge buddy to arrive. Indeed, it seems highly unlikely that this is
a place that you’d come regularly, and this lack of familiarity perhaps dampens
the atmosphere slightly. Having said
that, as we’d move on to discover, The Railway Tavern is probably one of the
better pubs in this area.

The Railway Tavern Ratings

Facilities – 2.5

Atmosphere – 2

Cost – 3

Entertainment – 3.5

Selection – 2

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.6/5

We headed next in the direction of
The White Swan, but instead stumbled across a tiny bar called ‘Jacks’
sandwiched in between a row of closed down shops (nothing much appears to be
open in Limehouse anymore). The owner
(presumably Jack?) stood at the door and welcomed us in as we passed him. Quite a homely feel to this place, it’s
clearly a converted shop with a bar in it but was nevertheless very
welcoming. The only let down really is
its location. Situated on Commercial
Road, the steady stream of traffic and blaring sirens, set in front of a
backdrop of derelict buildings doesn’t really leave the drinker with much of a
view. Indeed, I actually preferred to
look at Tindall than out of the window.
Perhaps this place had only just opened, there was no food menu but
empty blackboards galore, seemingly placed there once either Jack or his wife
had had time to do a big shop and rustle up some food. One pint of Guinness each later and we were
back on the road.

Jacks Ratings

Facilities – 2.5

Atmosphere – 3

Cost – 3

Entertainment – 1.5

Selection – 1

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.2/5

It was then that we found The White
Swan, although it had been boarded up.
Sadly this would become a common theme as the evening progressed, as we
passed 4 more pubs that no longer existed.
Our next venue Brewery Tap had also seen better days. Incredibly though it was still open. Although it may score higher than others on
our controversial and admittedly ridiculous FACES scale, this must surely be
the worst pub that we’ve come across so far.
As we entered we were greeted by the fixed stair of an old man with one
tooth who looked as though he spends every waking moment of his remaining days
there. In fact, I imagine he’s sitting
there right now, propped up against the bar, staring at the door in the hope of
a new customer to look at. He had to
make do with eavesdropping on the four guys occupying the table by the door on
the evening that we visited though; another set of regulars who most likely are
used to having the pub to themselves.
I’m not too sure the barmaid was overly pleased to see us either, she
spent the whole time we were there eyeing us suspiciously. Granted though, when two guys wearing suits
come in and start scribbling notes on pen and paper she was probably worried we
were from the brewery and had come to close her down.

Brewery Tap Ratings

Facilities – 0.5

Atmosphere – 1.5

Cost – 4

Entertainment – 1.5

Selection – 2

OVERALL AVERAGE – 1.9/5

We chose not to stay for long,
Brewery Tap really didn’t have anything going for it. The décor was awful and probably hadn’t
changed in 40 years, the atmosphere was non-existent, and the pint glasses were
wobbly. After 15 minutes or so of trying
to drink whilst keeping one eye on a potential escape route and another on a
gnat that had joined us for the duration of our stay, we quickly upped and
left, safe in the knowledge that no matter where we ended up next, it would be
more comfortable than here.

We were wrong. The next pub, The Old Ship, was much nicer,
but far less comfortable. As we
approached the venue things looked promising.
The Ship didn’t belong here, it looked nice, it looked clean, and it
looked open. All good signs. Hanging baskets, erm, hung outside and a warm
glow emanated from within. This was
better. We entered, ordered our pints
and found a table. The barmaid informed
me that she’d just changed the barrel when it came to serving me my drink, and
things didn’t taste right. I took a sip
and decided I needed to switch, complaining to her that my beer tasted ‘fruity’. As it turned out this was the wrong choice of
wording as I then glanced to my left to discover a man wearing make-up. We’d entered another gay pub. And once again, such as it is in modern times
I feel the need to add the disclaimer that we have no issue with gay people,
nor with establishments that cater primarily for them, it is however a little
awkward to be entering these bars, in a couple, with another man. Why?
The crudeness. Every single time
we’ve been to one of these gay friendly pubs the clientele cannot seem to speak
without every other comment being a sexual innuendo. It does make for a slightly discomforting experience. However, we’re here to judge a pub, not those
that frequent it, and so we set about analysing our surroundings. And we were pleasantly surprised. It was a relaxing venue, it was clean and we
didn’t feel threatened as we had done in the pub previous to this. Entertainment was rife too, with a drag act
once a week, it was so welcoming here in fact that for a second we thought we’d
consider popping back in a few days time to watch ‘Saucy Sophie’ or ‘Slag in
Drag’ perform. And then we came to our
senses and decided never to mention that rogue thought to anyone, anywhere,
ever.

The Old Ship Ratings

Facilities – 3.5

Atmosphere – 3

Cost – 3

Entertainment – 2

Selection – 2

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.7/5

Our evening ended with a visit to
The Queen’s Head. It ended rather
abruptly too as the staff around us started to close up at 10pm. In fairness to them at this point we were the
only two left, and besides ploughing money into their quiz machine we were
hardly worth staying open for. Queen’s
Head had seen better days. It was a huge
pub on the inside, but unfortunately had nobody there to fill it. On the wall was a picture of The Queen’s
Mother pouring a pint there in 1987, which incidentally may well have been the
year that the Quiz Machine that we were playing on had come from. After nabbing £3 from it (after only putting
about £5 in!) we drank up and left before being told to leave by the waiting
barmaid, off into the night, almost another DLR station light.

Queen’s Head Ratings

Facilities – 2.5

Atmosphere – 1

Cost – 3.5

Entertainment – 2.5

Selection – 1.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.6/5

There are still some pubs in the
area to visit, fortunately some of which are on the south side of the station
at the Quay, a much more enticing area.
Hopefully we can revisit here and wrap up any loose ends shortly.

Sunday, 26 August 2012

Once again it’s been a long time since we were out drinking
on the DLR. Our last venture away from
more familiar surroundings in the City was actually on the night of the
European Championship Final. Eager to go
out and see the game (I had a few cheeky bets on – which of course I lost) but
without the tenseness or pressure of England taking part we decided to head
over to Stratford High Street. It was a
bit of an impromptu visit to be fair, the evening began with a bit of necessary
shopping (my annual trip to buy a new shirt for work) and ended with 4 DLR pubs
ticked off. This was of course over a
month ago but laziness means I have once again not blogged our findings. To try and think back and re-cap then I know
that we started in King Edward VII (King Eddy’s) although this pub actually
fell outside the jurisdiction of both Stratford DLR and Stratford High Street
DLR. But seeing as I used to briefly
live in the area (very briefly, my flatmate hated me for feeding her cat and we
never recovered from that causing me to scarper back to Benfleet sooner than
intended) I insisted on taking Tindall there because it proved to be one of my
favourite pubs.

To be honest from there on I’m not entirely sure of the path
we took, I’ll have to check with Tindall but I figured it best to jot down what
I can now and I can always alter it later.
I know we watched the game across 2 different pubs, the first being The
Princess of Wales. A dingy pub this one,
with a less than enthusiastic barmaid and some extremely worn furniture. It wasn’t particularly clean either as
emphasized by the two flies that were buzzing around and trying to mate in
front of us, I would say obscuring the view but that would be going too
far. Nevertheless we moved on at half
time to Ye Old Black Bull and watched the second half of Spain’s demolition of
their opponents in the comfort of a lovely little beer garden with an outside
TV and sound rigged up. After that we
ended across the road in the Langthorne for one last drink, a pub that I can
neither recommend nor put down seeing as all I remember is it containing what
is most probably the world’s largest disco ball hanging from the ceiling just
outside the toilets.

Of course I’m supposed to be writing about West India Quay
right now, and that does stick more firmly in the memory as it was only 3 days
ago that we were there. Many of the pubs
at Canary Wharf fit into the West India Quay radius but we decided to leave
them to their parent station and just concentrate on the bars that form a line from
the converted docklands warehouses. So
then, each pub was pretty much exactly the same in terms of facilities! We started at ‘Via’ which after much
discussion and marketing analysis from Tindall we decided was a dreadful name
for a bar. I think they were going for
‘Via – a place to visit on your way home’ but it came across more as ‘Via –
this isn’t your final destination for the evening as this bar is a bit shit and
you’ll soon want to move on’. The food
did look fantastic, although almost certainly overly expensive considering the
area we were in. There was also a very
uncomfortable ‘table for two’ situated on a tiny balcony above the entrance to
the bar – fine for a romantic meal with a loved one, if that is the couple
envisage sipping wine with a crowd of pissed up city workers in suits standing
just metres below them as being romantic.

As I said each bar on this strip was much like the one
before, Henry’s next door was much of the same although a touch less ‘covey’ as
I seem to have written in my notes. A
let down too, it was one of those bars with nobody trying to order yet
seemingly nobody getting served either.
The barman seemed busy, but I’m not quite sure what he was actually
doing. After wandering about for a bit
he did finally serve us, and proceeded to pour quite possibly the world’s worst
pint of Strongbow, to say the tide was out a bit on that one was a huge
understatement.

It turned out that most of the bars here were indeed
predominantly restaurants so we were saved from having to enter them all. So before long we were sitting in the
Wetherspoons at the end of the row of bars, tucked away as it was behind the
German Camp for the Olympics. Due to our
crazy rating scheme this pub (The Ledger Building) would actually end up being
rated as the best pub in the area, purely down to the fact that it being a
Wetherspoon meant that the prices were so much cheaper. Clearly being in the land of sticky tables
and no background music should mean it’s not a great pub, but our ratings tell
us otherwise. We opted to eat here
though, the menu was standard as expected but they do microwave a good meal for
you!

Over all, Via bar received an average rating of 3.1, Henry’s
a marginally worse 3.0 and The Ledger Building a probably a bit preposterous
3.7.

And that’s where things get a bit complicated. With time on our hands we chose to head over
the water and mix it up with the ‘wankers in suits’ as I like to call
them. They are probably all lovely
people of course (or not) but from working there for over a year, I’d seen
enough to know that this area was not for me.
Months ago now we started on the Canary Wharf side, having a pint in
Brodie’s bar (for which all I have in my notes is ‘smells a bit like a swimming
pool’) and then moving on to Davys where I didn’t make any notes at all. We decided to make some more headway at this
station and so headed for one more pint in Corney & Barrow. And maybe I’m being biased due to my
aforementioned hatred of the area but this pub came in with possibly the lowest
rating so far (an average of just 1.6).
Worryi0ngly too it scored very highly on Facilities, leaving much to be
desired from every over aspect of the pub.
The drinks menu is best described as deceitful, advertising as it did a
range of beers only for us then to discover that the only options on tap were
Peroni and Guinness. We opted for a
Peroni and a Guinness and received this time the world’s worst poured pint of
Guinness. Now bearing in mind that
Tindall is now a keen and expert Guinness drinker, (why, the man has poured his
own pint back in Ireland – and he has a certificate to prove it), he was
understandably perplexed and disappointed to see that his ‘pint’ was indeed
about 1/3 ‘head’ once it had finally settled.
Drinking up quickly we headed home, another DLR station light.

A cheeky mid-week jaunt along the
DLR enabled us to tick off 2 further stations.
This is yet to be officially confirmed though as more research is
required to ensure that we have covered every drinking place at South
Quay. It appears that we have been
remarkably quiet on the DLR Challenge front over recent weeks and whilst this
is partly true, there have also been two visits to the Tower Gateway area which
I have not thus far got around to writing about. It was when studying this stop that we have
discovered another stumbling block in our attempt to visit every pub at every
station. At first glance Tower Gateway
seems to have no fewer than 26 drinking establishments. We discussed potential ways of getting around
this problem and perhaps bending the rules slightly (ideas ranged from just
visiting the 10 closest pubs to the station, to just outright lying and
pretending we went to each venue – all that would be needed for that would be a
mischievously grinning shot of Tindall standing outside a pub and people would
be none the wiser). But no. That would not be in the spirit of the
challenge, so we’ve instead opted to visit that area on occasion and intermittently
check off a couple of pubs. I’ll detail
those pubs at a later date but at this stage we have been to 4 places
there. Just the 22 pints to go then.

On this evening though, our thoughts
were firmly on rounding off Crossharbour and South Quay.

Crossharbour only has 2 pubs, one on either
side of the water so we knew we’d be able to complete our 7th
station of the challenge, and as far as we can tell South Quay only has one.

We began at The George, a very
quaint and traditional looking pub that had clearly been there long before the
DLR ever came into existence. It serves
as a perfect place for both local residents and suits who fancy dropping by for
a quick beer on their way home from work.
This blend of customer was immediately evident on entering as we were
presented with a local man (complete with local intimidating dog that spent the
whole time staring at and unnerving Tindall as he sipped his pint) jokingly
throwing an empty crisp wrapper at the barmaid, whilst at the same time a posh
City worker could be heard approaching the bar and uttering ‘marvellous, great
timing’ to his other upper class pals.

It was certainly a fairly relaxed
venue, which we initially marked down somewhat for facilities (it is a little
grubby) until we left the pub and noticed that in all there are 3 separate bars
that make up The George. There is the
main pub area where we sat where you can enjoy a pint and watch the football,
or for the quieter drinker there is an option to wander on through to ‘Ma
Bakers Bar’, a room that a sign confusingly but thankfully incorrectly shows
that you can only get to by walking through the Women’s toilets. And additional to both of these there is a
third bar, complete with a conservatory and beer garden and an ideal place to
sit and order food.

The George Ratings

Facilities – 4

Atmosphere – 2.5

Cost – 2.5 – Seemed pricey but we’d
switched to Guinness for the evening due to Tindall’s recent outing to Dublin
and his new found love for the black stuff.
(He really has taken a shine to it, returning home last week in a
Guinness T-shirt, and also hoarding a Guinness paperweight and Guinness keyring
and Guinness shot glass. He is also now
the proud owner of a certificate detailing his ability to pour the perfect pint
– of Guinness, naturally).

Entertainment – 3.5

Selection – 3

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.1/5

We ended up in The Spinnaker next,
wandering off course slightly and over to South Quay (not a deliberate ploy, we
got lost whilst trying to seek out any other hidden pubs in the area). Although glorious in setting (the main
drinking area backs onto the Quay), The Spinnaker is essentially a Wetherspoon
in terms of style. Slow service, a
sticky bar and a lack of atmosphere really makes the pub difficult to
recommend. One real plus point though is
the fact that it opens at 8.30am – ideal for alcoholics and those that fancy a
huge breakfast before work.

The Spinnaker Ratings

Facilities – 3.5

Atmosphere – 2

Cost – 3

Entertainment – 2.5

Selection – 3.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.9/5

We didn’t hang around at South Quay
for any longer than necessary and quickly headed back to Crossharbour to enter
our third and final place of the night.
Called ‘Pepper Saint Ontiod’ this bar was a delightful place to
drink. Spread over two floors it would
appeal to a range of people. The ground
floor is more relaxed, with books and board games and a decent menu for those
seeking an evening meal. But upstairs is
where we headed and made ourselves comfortable watching the football in front
of the big screen where we sat and relaxed for the rest of the evening. We were pleased with ourselves for finally
making a bit more progress as Crossharbour is now complete although displeasing
for me as our inactivity gives me very little else to write about.

Less than a week after wrapping up two more stations, we set
out to complete both Island Gardens and Mudchute in one evening. However, due to sheer incompetence and
laziness on my part I’ve neglected to update the blog for over a month - it
being late April as I write this - resulting in me forgetting many of the
details about the night. Fortunately
though we did record the ratings of each pub we visited and it did result in
the conclusion of two more stations.

Four places were visited that evening, three of which belonged
to Island Gardens, and the other being the one solitary pub that would have the
weight of a whole DLR station resting upon its shoulders.

The four pubs were as follows

Great Eastern – A pub/hotel with an open planned bar and a
relaxed atmosphere

Ratings

Facilities – 3 – looked as though it had recently been
refurbished, but the budget seemingly didn’t stretch to include improving the
toilets. Strangely, seemed to have opted
to install many wobbly tables as well.

Atmosphere – 3 – Friendly barstaff who whistle as they pour
you a pint (although admittedly this may have been a one off), mixture of
guests and regular drinkers

Cost – 4 – Cannot argue with £6 for two pints!

Entertainment – 3.5 – Came with a TV for viewing football, a
jukebox and a weekly quiz night.

Selection – 2.5 – Disappointing. ‘Pre-wrapped wraps’ is all that was on offer
from a counter at the bar

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.2/5

The Ferry House – A splendid little pub; warm, cosy and with
a local feel to it

Ratings

Facilities – 3.5 – Completely wooden interior, definitely
the pub with the most nooks and crannies on show so far

Entertainment – 4 – Came with a separate games room with old
fashioned pub games and a Bar Billiards Table that we pretended to know how to
use but instead made up our own rules

Selection – 1.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.4/5

Lord Nelson – A sign outside offers the punter a ‘Warm Welcome’,
but turns out you have to pay for it.
Cold inside, and an outdoor heater that charges you 20p for every 5
minutes of use

Ratings

Facilities – 3

Atmosphere – 1.5 – The barmaid pulled off the incredible
feat of being able to serve me without actually

communicating with any
words. Some furniture seemed out of
place and had seemingly been borrowed from an American Diner.

Cost – 3.5

Entertainment – 3 – Came with a pool table with not enough
room to play around it, but there was an organised weekly pool tournament on
offer, of which the Eggles are the current champions. Many minutes were pondered over whether they
were a married couple or siblings. One
of our better conversations that one.

Selection – 3.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.9/5

The Ship – Mudchute’s only pub. Situated on the periphery of our radius, it
actually makes sense to visit it from Island Gardens. Just so you know.

Ratings

Facilities – 3 – All pretty standard save for a cubicle in
the mens that was so cramped you almost had to stand on the toilet itself in
order to close the door behind you.
Would probably win the ‘Toilet you are most likely to get trapped in on
the DLR’ award if there ever was such a prize.

Atmosphere – 3.5 – Friendly barman although he did seem to
be trying a little too hard. Asked if we
wanted food and continued trying to sell it to us even after we’d politely
declined. He did however take the time
to recommend other pubs in the area.

Cost – 3.5

Entertainment – 2.5 – Just one TV – and West Ham were on
it. Live music on weekends

Selection – 3.5 – A fairly decent ‘less is more’ menu and a
range of beers on offer.

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.4/5

Island Gardens is a quiet area, aside from the 3 pubs there
are a couple of restaurants, one of which that had been converted from an old
fire station. On the downside, there is
no longer a fire station! There is very
little else in close proximity to the DLR although there is easy access to
Cutty Sark and Greenwich via the Greenwich Foot Tunnel that runs beneath the
Thames.

Area – 2.5/5

ISLAND GARDENS OVERALL RATING – 5.7/10

Mudchute is extremely quiet, primarily residential with only
one pub, but here is a picture of a nice sunset to prove how picturesque the
area can be.

Friday, 6 April 2012

COMPLETING GREENWICH AND CUTTY SARK
(14/03/12)

We set out last Wednesday confident
of wrapping up both Cutty Sark and Greenwich as we only had four more pubs to
visit in these regions; 2 in Cutty Sark, 1 in Greenwich and due to their close
proximity, 1 that fits into the radius of both stations. This particular pub was The Auctioneer, and
was actually the last pub of the evening.
We imagined before we even set out that we’d have plenty of time to get
to each venue before closing, but due to us becoming engrossed in the Chelsea v
Napoli game (4-1 AET, cracking game) by the time we approached our last
destination we were only minutes away from the last bell being rung. I say bell, but in fact it was just the sound
of the barmaid screaming ‘can you start drinking up now please’ at frequent
intervals.

We began the evening though at the
Lord Hood, a pub that will definitely contribute to an overall drop in ratings
for Cutty Sark. As we entered we were
greeted by the sight of a noisy rabble of all ages bunched around the table
nearest to us, and two bald men sitting at the bar not talking to each
other. The bar itself was placed in the
middle of the room, with a food counter that looked as though it hadn’t been
used in months (in fact the only visible way to us that you could attempt to
avert your hunger here was in one of those jars where you put in 20p and twist
the handle to receive 5 or 6 probably stale nuts that had been there for months
without being changed) to the right of it and seating to the left. The room looked quite rundown, and was cold
in terms of both atmosphere and temperature.
The pub also came complete with one television, strategically placed in
such a position on the wall that you cannot actually get a clear view of it if
you choose to sit at any of the tables on offer. Such was the negativity we felt here, that we
even began to argue amongst ourselves over whether or not a particular picture
mounted on the wall was any good or not (it wasn’t).

Things became worse with the
toilets. Aside from generally being in
quite a poor condition overall, the door to the cubicle was also so poorly
mounted that it didn’t come anywhere near to matching the frame that it was
attached to, and whilst in there I was greeted by a wandering women looking for
the exit but instead finding herself interrupting my wee. Redeeming features? Well, it had a piano. Glancing around to see if it were possible
that anybody here could play it, we decided this to be unlikely as we overhead
one guy excitedly telling his mate he’d probably only be about 19 years old now
if he had been born on the 29th February. Tindall took exception to this and wanted to
explain to the middle aged fool that if that were the case then he’d have to
actually be almost 80 by now, so it was at this point that we made the decision
to leave and move on.

Lord Hood Ratings

Facilities – 2

Atmosphere – 2

Cost – 3.5

Entertainment – 3

Selection – 1.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 2.4/5

Our second pub of the evening was to
be The Rose and Crown. When we first entered, the pub
was almost empty save for an old couple at the bar and another chap minding his
own business in the far corner. This
didn’t stop the barman (a lovely German fellow who really grew on us as the
evening progressed) from taking an eternity to serve us. As we waited to order we couldn’t help but
feel a little conscious of the ‘scowly chef’ who just stood at the doorway of
his kitchen with his arms folded, looking like he hadn’t cooked anything in
days. First impressions then were not
great. However, things soon picked up as
the German guy eventually got around to offering us drinks, pouring them slowly
in a delightfully German way (he left a head on the pint so large that there
was little room for much drinkable liquid in the glass below it), before charging us ‘7 and
a half pounds please’ and returning us with ‘2 and a half pounds change thank
you’. A generally likeable chap whose
bar skills were about as good as his English, but the attention he devoted to
each customer was thoroughly commendable.
Indeed he proved this just moments later by spotting our determination
to watch the Chelsea game and kindly offering to increase the volume of the TV
for us. On the flip side this did now
mean we would be forced to listen to the skewed views and irritating voice of
Andy Townsend for the remainder of the game.

Before long the pub began to fill
out as a mixture of students and older people arrived, seeking sanctuary from
the cold outside. They were joined by a
male and a female who sat at the table next to us and quickly became the sole
attention of our night. It was evident
from watching these two that a) she had envisaged there being another person
with them for the evening, b) he really wanted to sleep with her, and c) she
was never going to sleep with him. She
was an attractive German girl who clearly felt it rude to just leave when he
announced that he was sorry that his friend couldn’t make it that evening, and
he was an annoying English guy that was punching above his weight but was
determined not to go down without a fight. He lost the first round though as she opted to
pluck for a pint of water as her beverage of choice after he had himself ordered
a beer. Clearly, she didn’t intend on
hanging around for long. It could be
argued that it was perhaps a little rude for us to eavesdrop on this man’s
attempts to ‘woo’ a lady, but seeing as his approach was to keep shouting
idiotic comments in a high pitched voice in our direction, I feel that that
gives me the license to talk about him.
His main technique to impress was to frequently drop into conversation
all of the things he had achieved so far, he spent a long time for example telling
her how he had once run a marathon, ending his story with ‘and that was when I
was 24’. Perhaps he was taking her
through the timeline of his life so far. On the regular occasions that he would run out of things to say he’d
just revert to looking up at the TV screen and trying to explain to the girl
about the game in hand, despite him clearly not knowing all that much about
football himself. ‘I once went to the
Chelsea stadium’ he proudly claimed at one point, the mere fact he neglected to
mention the name of the stadium, confirming once and for all that he really
didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
It got worse though, as conversation between the two stuttered further
and she was clearly failing to become drunk on her glass of water (and
therefore less aware of the drivel he was talking), he inexplicably resorted to
just making random comments about things he could see. ‘Flags are boring’ was one of my personal
favourites. Now I’m not an expert with
women but I do know never to bring up the excitability of flags as a way to
impress. Inevitably, she soon drew the
evening to a close, and the pair of them walked off with him no doubt thinking
he was making more impressive comments to her about himself when to her all he
was really saying was ‘I’m a massive wanker’ over and over again.

This amusing episode didn’t detract
from the fact that we had a pub to rate.
And despite as I previously mentioned there being an indifferent start,
our opinions of The Rose and Crown quickly changed. The facilities were of an extremely high
standard, one of the cleanest pubs we’ve come across so far. The selection on offer actually proved to be
fantastic as well with a huge but affordable menu on offer, and despite his
looks, ‘scowly chef’ was pulling out all the stops, serving food late into the
evening as the pub became busier and busier.
We would have liked to have hung around for longer but by the time the
Chelsea game eventually came to a close we had left ourselves less than an hour
to visit the last two pubs. So we left,
and headed the short walk to The Morden Arms.

The Rose and Crown Ratings

Facilities – 4.5

Atmosphere – 4

Cost – 2 (at ‘7 and a half’) it was
a bit pricey

Entertainment – 2

Selection – 4.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.4/5

The Morden Arms (and NOT the Modern
Arms as I had mistakenly presumed) was a pleasant pub with a local feel to
it. Not the guarded local feel that
accompanied Lord Hood, but instead a sense of everyone knowing each other and
not judging each other for who they are kind of feel. Quirky little signs such as ‘where the
customer is always wrong’ occupied the walls.
This was a place that didn’t take itself too seriously. Arriving late it was fairly quiet, but we
were still welcomed by the local drunk who made some sort of incomprehensible
comment to us (probably something along the lines of ‘you don’t have to be
crazy to drink here… but it helps!) before announcing to everyone present that
he was now leaving and staggered off into the night. After ordering a pint we took a seat on one
of the comfier looking than they actually were sofas and took in our
surroundings whilst trying to come up with some intellectual way of describing
this pub. This proved frustratingly
difficult though, so we eventually settled on it being ‘a bit different’ to any
other pub we’ve been to. Sure, this is a
very basic analogy, but one we felt most closely described what we could
see. How else would you describe an open
planned pub with dark red walls, two fireplaces with bookshelves over the top
of them, countless amounts of mis-matching tables and chairs, two dogs (one of
which may well have been a guest for the evening and was busy licking a
customer’s face, and the other that spent the whole time that we were there
continually doing laps of the floor), an internet portal, huge speakers in one
corner to be accompanied by live acoustic bands most evenings and one overly
large and uncharacteristic vase of flowers sitting atop one of the tables? Exactly… it was all just a bit different, but
this was no bad thing, The Morden Arms had a weird charm to it.

Morden Arms Ratings

Facilities – 4

Atmosphere – 3.5

Cost – 3.5

Entertainment – 3

Selection – 1.5

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.1/5

As stated earlier, we ended proceedings at The
Auctioneer, the pub with the screaming barmaid.
We didn’t particularly enjoy our time here, but then it really only
served as a stop off point for us, time only to quickly gulp down one more beer
before heading home for the night.
Perhaps if we were a few years younger we’d appreciate this venue more,
for The Auctioneer is primarily a student pub.
It comes complete with a pool table, overly loud music, a sticky floor
and gives you the opportunity to ‘like’ us on Facebook. It seemed we picked a good week to visit this
pub as it will now be closing for the rest of the month for a refurb. Quite ingeniously we decided, they were
planning to auction off (very apt for a pub of this name) everything before
replacing it with new furniture. So if
you’re on the lookout for a wobbly, beer and sweat soaked bar stool, The
Auctioneer is the place to come!

Sunday, 11 March 2012

GREENWICH (08/03/12)

Our main focus this evening was to work our way through some of the pubs in Greenwich.Beforehand though we headed back into Deptford Bridge to try and finish this station.At this point of the challenge we have stuck closely to areas within walking distance of our flat and the plan here was to nip into the Star and Garter, each down a terrifying pint and then scurry on up the hill and hide out in any number of small village-like pubs that we’d be sure to find in the Greenwich Zone.We’d decided that the Carlton Bar (the only other pub in the area on our list that we’d yet to visit) was in fact more of a restaurant than a drinking establishment, so ticking off this last venue would mean the completion of our third DLR stop.We approached our target from the opposite direction on this occasion (Tindall had led us on a wild goose chase in search of another pub that we had missed first time around, only for it to turn out to be a pest control shop) and in doing so discovered a fantastic looking pub called the Royal Albert.Here, drinkers relaxed both inside and out, sipping their drinks in what looked to be a warm and welcoming atmosphere.With dismay we discovered this tranquil setting was situated just outside of our circle, so begrudgingly we trudged on and prepared to enter our intended target.However, as we approached we could see the front of the pub was closed.There were signs informing us that the back bar was open so we edged our way around the side of the building and could see light beyond the windows to indicate that this seemed to be the case.Pushing to enter, the door jammed in the top of the frame.Undeterred (it’s the kind of pub you’d expect a door to jam) I kept pushing, trying to force it open when a scruffy man suddenly appeared, muttered that the pub was closed due to them ‘decorating’, and slammed the door shut.He didn’t much look like a decorator, he looked more like a shifty man with a beard to us, but who were we to argue.Frustratingly then, this last pub remains elusive, meaning yet another trip back will be required.

We put our minor setback to the back of our minds and headed towards Greenwich.(We’ve actually completed two of the pubs in this area already.A few weeks ago Tindall’s brother Dave came and joined us for a small pub crawl where we took in four pubs, two in Greenwich and two in the Cutty Sark region.On that particular evening we were able to first tick off Belushi’s – a pub situated beneath a hostel – and The Mitre (the first pub on our tour to feature at more than one station as it is within range of both Greenwich and Cutty Sark) and then heading onto The Gypsy Moth and The Gate Clock.This latter pub being a Wetherspoons, will sadly most probably bring down the average rating for the area.Fear not though, adding another Tindall to our ranks only served to enhance our rating skills, indeed facilities at each of our pubs were far more closely scrutinised than usual by Dave, who needed to use them more regularly than your average man would due to suffering from the side effects of winning a closely contested and nail biting pancake eating competition 11-8 the evening before.It does beg the question why you’d keep devouring yet more pancakes when your rival has clearly long since given up, but ultimately that is neither here nor there and not a concern of this blog, so let us get back to focusing on the pub challenge in hand).

Our first stop then was at The North Pole.This bar has an excellent reputation as being an alternative place to hang out on a weekend evening.A shame then that we arrived fairly early on a Thursday night, long before many other revellers would choose to appear.Because of this we didn’t really get a real sense of the atmosphere to be had there.Further disappointment was immediately thrust upon us as we discovered that there was no beer whatsoever on tap.The barmaid did very politely explain that this was due to a new selection of beers being added ready for the weekend, but it was still a let-down to find them carrying out this task at such a time.Otherwise, selection was plentiful.Being a bar you could order beers, cocktails, champagne (ranging from the ‘ridiculously cheap and most likely poor tasting’, to ‘overly expensive but some fool will still pay for it’ option), and the food menu was also delightfully varied.The real treat came with the discovery of a ‘Shisha Lounge’ situated outside in an immaculate garden area.With a restaurant situated upstairs, and a club (The South Pole) below, The North Pole has something for everyone.

The North Pole Ratings

Facilities – 4.5

Atmosphere – 3

Cost – 2.5Entertainment – 4

Selection – 4 (would have been a perfect 5 were it not for the beer situation)

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.6/5

The rest of our evening would involve brief visits to a number of quiet, village pubs.Hidden away from the main road and escaping the clutches of tourists these pubs were great for the local who wanted some quiet respite from daily life.This couldn’t have been more apt than with our next pub – Asburnham Arms.Even we were surprised to stumble across it, as it was discreetly tucked away along a residential street.We entered to the sound of quiet, sophisticated chatter from the customers inside.Sitting at the bar we were able to eavesdrop on conversations that the barman would have with each regular that entered for the evening.One guy when asked about his day replied ‘My day?My day…. is not bad!’Amazing! A pub where people are positive.Here, people don’t have bad days, people don’t make negative comments.I bet they even like the weather when it rains.This is my kind of place.And you know for sure of the type of company you’re in when someone leaves announcing in a posh voice that they ‘better not stay for another, must get back to feed Max’. Assuming that Max was that man’s pet dog and not a starved child that he’d neglected whilst he’d nipped out to chat about current affairs over a pint of Theakston’s Old Peculiar, then I’m all for it.Even the board games on offer (yes, they had board games!) were sophisticated.Games with names such as ‘Compendium’ and ‘Perudo’ were available.There’d be no ‘Ker-plunk!’ here that’s for sure.There was also a quiz night on a Tuesday, albeit one in which we felt we’d most probably not even understand the questions let alone the answers.

As we sat there sipping our pints and wishing we could talk with a larger range of vocabulary as well, we were introduced to our first DLR Challenge cat, which took an instant dislike to Tindall as he attempted to befriend it.

Ashburnham Arms Ratings

Facilities – 5 (our first maximum score)

Atmosphere – 4

Cost – 3

Entertainment – 2.5

Selection – 4.5 (excellent food menu of which they were still serving from when we left at 9.30pm)

OVERALL AVERAGE – 3.8/5

Mindful of the time and with a cluster of pubs to try and get to, we ventured quickly on.Our next three pubs were situated on the same road, in fact two of them are placed next door to each other.First up was The Prince of Greenwich.On entering it was clear that this was another gay pub.I should’ve picked up on that notion as a man apologised for blocking the door on the way in by saying ‘ooh, sorry darling’ to Tindall.Inside seemed to be a pleasant atmosphere, but there were instant teething problems.Rob’s requested pint of Aspall appeared instead in the form of an Amstel, and my Becks Vier tasted off (although in true British style I didn’t want to offend anybody so kept quiet and struggled through for half a pint until I eventually plucked up the courage to switch drinks).But once we’d ironed out these issues and found a table that didn’t wobble when you as much as breathed on it, we settled down to enjoy our time there.

The Prince of Greenwich

It was soon time to move on though. Neglecting the offer of ‘Free-doms’ (free condoms for those who are unsure) at the bar, we wandered a few paces to our next pub, The Greenwich Union.We were in a bit of a hurry by now, time constraints meaning we only had about 20 minutes per pint if we were to tick off the remaining two pubs before close.So we were not helped by terribly poor service in our penultimate pub of the night, at first there was nobody at all behind the bar, and shortly after there was just a grumpy looking guy who came and stood next to a tip jar (that surely on this performance takes quite a while to fill up).Still, the pub itself had a positive vibe, filled with a mixture of students (some of which were having some serious relationship issues) and older people (some of whom decided to bring their pet dogs along for a night out with them).Greenwich Union also comes complete with two beer gardens, a small one at the front and a huge one at the rear.

We just about managed to stumble into our last planned pub for the evening (Richard I), grabbing a pint minutes before the last bell and negotiating yet more small dogs at our feet and a confusing pub layout to eventually find a spot by a huge curved window.As we sipped our pints and tried to decipher whether or not the lavender on our table was real or not (with a heavy cold I couldn’t smell anything but we concluded that it wasn’t - is this even relevant? Perhaps there was a lull in conversation between us at this point), our eyes stumbled upon one of the most fantastic food menus ever seen.Maybe that is an over-exaggeration, but this was most certainly the first pub we’d been in where you could order such delights as a baked cheese soufflé or even a vegetarian higgledy pie.It certainly makes a pleasant change from Hunters Chicken with curly fries that’s for sure.Refreshingly too, after the last bell, although we were informed to drink up, there was no real pressure placed upon us to leave which resulted in us being the last customers present, eventually departing long after the weird Geordie guy and the awkward ‘first date that clearly wasn’t going very well’ couple.

The evening had been a bit rushed, but ultimately a success.At this point now we only need to visit The Modern Arms and The Auctioneer (the latter of which also encompasses the Cutty Sark region).And with just one pub left at Deptford Bridge and a maximum of two at Cutty Sark, we can hopefully very shortly tick off three more stations, and must soon look to branch out to locations slightly further afield.

The Prince of Greenwich Ratings

Facilities – 3.5

Atmosphere – 3.5

Cost – 3.5

Entertainment – 2.5

Selection – 3 (not the most varied but the only place so far where you can just order a ‘pint of chips’)

Monday, 5 March 2012

DEPTFORD BRIDGE (04/03/12)

After an almost two week break on the
DLR Challenge due to conflicting schedules (Tindall – spending time with his
girlfriend, going to nice restaurants and weekend trips away; Me – learning how
to play computer games again, doing a big shop and having a go at using the
hoover), we finally found ourselves sitting at home on a wet and windy Sunday
evening with nothing much to do.So we
set out to conquer Deptford Bridge.I’d
researched the area previously and found only 3 pubs so we figured it’d just be
a case of popping out for a cheeky pint or 3, jotting down some figures and
then heading home nice and early for a cup of tea.However, prior to leaving I decided to check
one more time for any pubs I may have missed, and somehow came up with
potentially as many as 13 places of interest.We knew then that this would be another case of just ticking off a few
tonight and leaving the rest for a later date.The venues on our list then, were as follows;

1)Live Bar

2)Star and Garter

Our first pub of the night - The Cranbrook

3)The Hoy

4)The Birds Nest

5)Little Crown

6)Carlton Wine Bar

7)Deptford Arms

8)Bar Sonic

9)London Greenwich
West Hostel

10)RED

11)Greenwich Inn

12)57 Bar

13)The Cranbrook

As is often the case, once we get
out on the road we realise that many of these places are either no longer open,
or we decide that some venues do not match our criteria of being a pub or a bar.Happily, we could immediately cross off a few;
Live Bar as it didn’t actually exist, The Hoy as it had long since closed down,
The Deptford Arms was no longer a pub, Greenwich Inn was in fact a Premier Inn
Hotel and Bar Sonic was nowhere to be found.This still left us with 6 locations to get through that evening if we
could.

We began at The Cranbrook.Situated on the border of our Deptford Bridge
radius it was the first pub we came across as we made our way over by foot from
Elverson Road.At first glance the pub
looked closed.Indeed the doors when
pushed were locked.This didn’t look
promising.But as we edged our way
around the side of the building we spotted a back entrance with a guy standing
in it.Asking him if they were open he
replied yes and as we entered, warned us to ‘watch out for that one’ referring
to the barmaid.I did indeed watch out
for her for the first 5 minutes or so but she just spent the whole time reading
a newspaper so I’m not entirely sure what the man was going on about.It was probably something to do with the fact
that he was very drunk, (as was his pool playing partner) that caused him to
make this ‘hilarious’ quip as we walked past.The two drunken Irishmen and the barmaid were the only people in the
pub.By entering the premises Tindall
and I had increased the amount of paying customers in The Cranbrook by a
staggering 100%!

The bar itself was situated in the
middle of the room and we chose to sit at it on one side so that we could ably
survey the facilities.They were pretty
awful in truth.Firstly there were hardly
any seats or tables in the whole pub, and those that were present were looking
more than a little worse for wear, as proven by Tindall as the top of his seat
came off as we stood up to leave.The
whole pub was rundown save for a half decent pool table in the corner, and it
was freezing in there as the barmaid kept opening the door so that she could
stand by it and smoke.She was friendly
however, and had the inclination to notice when we were close to the end of our
pints, quickly offering us another one.The atmosphere was terrific only if you want to go to a place with two
drunken people shouting and making fun of each other as they miss shot after
shot on the pool table.After drinking up
we politely declined another, decided to pass on the opportunity to play on
probably the world’s oldest quiz machine and walked out, leaving the two
bickering pool players behind us.

The pub we were too scared to enter

Next up was the Star and
Garter.As we approached it though, for
the first time on this tour we felt a little intimidated.There was a huge black guy standing on the
door, loud African music was blaring out from within, and managing to sneak a
quick peek through the gap in the blinds I quickly became aware that this was a
drinking place solely for African people.I panicked somewhat as we approached the entrance, changed my mind at
the last minute and continued on up the road.This was not good.We had to
enter this pub, it’s in our radius therefore we need to rate it.We decided it would be best to discuss
tactics over a beer, and fortunately enough the ‘Little Crown’ was immediately
opposite.

Little Crown is an Irish Bar.Another Irish bar.There certainly seems to be a lot of them in
the area.As if to hammer home how Irish
it was, we were greeted with ‘Galway Girl’ being played on the overly loud
speakers as we entered.Still, after our
near miss just moments before it was all rather welcoming to find ourselves in
more familiar surroundings.We grabbed
our pints for a more than reasonable price and found some empty seats.The pub was open-planned, with a dartboard
and TV screen at one end, and a jukebox that you couldn’t actually get to at
the other.The atmosphere was relaxed
and friendly enough but we soon noticed that everybody in there was at least
twice our age, and at least twice as drunk as we were.So we just cowered in the corner sipping our
pints and, keeping ourselves to ourselves, discussed tactics about how we were
going to go about entering the Star and Garter.After finishing our drinks we suddenly felt a little more confident.I announced that we’d just walk straight over
there, enter the pub and order a beer.So up we got, deciding against the apparent tradition here of hugging
everyone else in the bar before leaving, (as so many other customers seemed to
be doing), left the premises and crossed back over the road.

As we once again approached the Star
and Garter, I swear the music had become louder and the people had become more
African.We figured it best to leave this
pub for now; we’ll come back on a quiet Saturday afternoon before all the
singing begins.

Next up should have been Carlton
Wine Bar but this place too looked a little less than desirable and our
confidence had been knocked so we walked straight past.Hoping to bounce back at a more familiar
venue we were disappointed to discover that The Deptford Arms had now become a
Paddy Power.So we pushed on and eventually
came across 57 Bar (ingeniously named, 57 Bar is a bar that can be found at
number 57 on the street it is situated on).Up until this point we have only rated pubs. This was to be our first bar so it was perhaps
a little unfair to be reviewing it on a cold wet Sunday evening when nobody
would be going there.Bars like this are
probably packed on a Friday and Saturday night, but we quickly decided that we
wouldn’t much care for the sort of people that go there anyway and felt a
little more at ease when rating it.There were only a handful of other people drinking there as we arrived, including
what appeared at first glance to be one of the gangsters of Deptford.I’m not entirely sure what a gangster looks
like, but this guy did look like how I imagined one would look, and he was on
the phone telling about how he needed to ‘sort something out’. It turned out later though that he was merely
discussing how he had to get some work done on an extension back home.Still, even gangsters have chores to do.

Despite not really liking the place,
57 Bar could not be faulted for its facilities.It was exceptionally clean, had 3 floors for people to go to and listen
to bad music, and had two pool tables and even a cloakroom, handy for anybody
out there that still wears a cloak.The toilets
were also immaculate, although I did notice a chair in the corner implying that
on busier nights there’d be a guy there who would turn the water on for you and
hand you not quite enough paper towel to properly dry your hands before making
you pay him a pound.

We drank up and intended on one more
stop for the evening – The Birds Nest.I
immediately liked The Birds Nest.It had
real character.And bats.The entire ceiling on one side of the pub was
covered in paper bats.Very gothic.As was the barmaid who poured two pints
without smiling but it’s ok as that’s to be expected, it’s all probably just
part of her look.As we sat down at the
bar we noticed from the posters on the wall that they have a live band here
almost every night of the week.We were
actually a little saddened to discover that we’d just missed ‘Psychoyogi’ who
were playing here for Tom’s birthday just the night before.I bet Tom had a great night, one of his best
birthdays ever.We were rewarded though
with a different band that were just jamming, playing around with different
tracks and instruments.It didn’t always
sound great, but the energy and enthusiasm put into it by those taking part was
infectious.As we sat there astounded to
find out that there are more than 6 types of harmonica even though they do all
sound the same, we were beginning to commend the pub for its excellent
facilities when Tindall noticed loads of discarded chewing gum that had been
stuck to the posts on the bar in various places.There were also a few Chocolate Santa’s
sitting on the counter, it now being March suggesting that this place wasn’t
cleaned too often after all.To top all this,
the barmaid disappeared for a full 10 minutes at one point.Still, these are all minor quibbles, it was a
friendly place, had a great selection of beers, and a wide range of live
music.In short The Birds Nest is
probably our favourite pub at Deptford Bridge.

The George and Dragon

BONUS PUB – We decided to head home
after this but en-route stumbled across The George and Dragon.The George and Dragon isn’t actually in range
of any of our DLR stations so we didn’t need to rate it, but we’d noticed it
before and decided to have one last cheeky pint.The George and Dragon is a gay pub.We entered halfway through a man performing
in drag on stage.I’ve since made it a
personal ambition of mine to never again enter a gay pub in the sole company of
another man halfway through a cabaret performance from a man in drag.We were of course immediately picked on, so
scurried off to the right and ducked for cover in a different section of the
pub.As we ordered and sipped our pints
we suddenly started to worry.They say
that gay men can spot other gay men through their Gaydar.What if then, they can also spot frauds?What if they were to realise that we were not
gay?I do not of course have any problem
with homosexuality.I do however have a
problem with being in a homosexual bar when there is a gay man on stage picking
on people in the crowd.Minutes later
things got worse.I needed to use the
toilet.The toilets were on the other
side of the pub, on the other side of the large audience of gay men and gay
performer.We were going to have to walk
across them all.Having seen how the guy
in drag performed (he made bad jokes, picked on people in the crowd and said ‘cunt’
a lot) we knew our best chance would be to make a dash for it only once he had
begun to sing.That way he wouldn’t be
able to stop and pick on us.So, once he
was into full swing on the chorus to his song ‘Wash Your Bollocks’ we made our
move.Relief was short lived though as this
seemingly intelligent decision had led us deeper into the pub, further away
from the exit.We finished our pints,
trying not to stare at men that were sitting on other men’s laps and made a run
for it once the guy had finished a routine about fisting and was well into his
next hit entitled ‘Cunt Song’.

Deptford Bridge has certainly been
one of the more interesting stations so far, we need to return at some point to
finally get that pint in the Star and Garter, as well as visit Carlton Wine Bar
and Red.